Lake Travis High School

A man who investigators believe caused a crash which killed two people in November on Texas 71 near Spicewood may have had twice the legal limit of alcohol in his blood.

Blanco County Sheriff's deputies now have charged Bala Chandra Sekhar Gutti, 29, with two counts of intoxication manslaughter for the deaths of 46-year-old Cynthia Ann Vega and her 17-year-old son, Santiago, a senior at Lake Travis High School.

Gutti, of Richardson, currently is being held in the Blanco County Jail. The Nov. 28, 2016, accident had occurred in the small corner of Blanco County that sits between the borders of Burnet and Travis counties.

The accident occurred shortly after 8 a.m. Monday, Nov. 28, on the steep, winding stretch of Texas 71 three miles east of Spicewood. Sgt. Robbie Barrera, Department of Public Safety information officer, said 911 calls had been coming in from motorists observing a 2015 Subaru “speeding and driving erratically.”

By Glynis Crawford Smith

The Highlander

The two victims who died in the crash on Texas 71 east of Spicewood Monday, Nov. 28, were Cynthia Ann Vega, age 46, and her son, Santiago Vega, age 17, both from Marble Falls.

A funeral service will be held for the mother and son at Celements-Wilcox Funeral Home in Marble Falls Friday, Dec. 2, at 4 p.m., followed by a rosary service at 6 p.m. On Thursday, however, friends and family gathered at the site of the crash to memorialize them. Balloons were released into the skies over the rolling hills where they died.

Unable to attend was Justino Rodriguez, age 50 and also of Marble Falls, who was a passenger with the Vegas.

He was airlifted from the scene Monday and remains in University Medical Center Brackenridge, as does Bala Chandra Sekhar Gutti, 29, of Richardson, driver of the 2015 Subaru that first collided with the Vegas' 2015 Ford Focus.

Although the Texas Department of Public Safety has not released the names of the two victims who died or the surviving drivers of two cars in the morning crash on Texas 71 near Spicewood, word of the identities of the deceased came late this afternoon, Monday, Nov. 28.

They were identified in a letter from the Lake Travis High School (LTHS) Principal Gordon Butler as high school senior Santiago Vega and his mother, Cynthia Vega.

The letter read: